


You and the sea, talking

by Veto_power_over_clocks



Series: Badly paraphrased songs [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bonding, Canon Compliant, Gen, Homesickness, I think it counts as langst, set during season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-12-05 07:33:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11573349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veto_power_over_clocks/pseuds/Veto_power_over_clocks
Summary: The proper way of bonding with your lion.("Take that, Keith!""Lance, be nice.")





	1. Rainy Sunday nostalgia

**Author's Note:**

> Before writing everything else in the "Badly paraphrased songs" series I wrote a series of vignettes to help me develop and practice the Blue Lion + Lance dynamic I wanted to show, and to flesh out Blue's personality. I figured somebody else might like them, so I’ve edited and expanded them to turn them into an actual fic.
> 
> You don't need to have read anything else in the series to understand, because the entirety of this fic takes place during season 1! (I only have one season 2 vignette, and it doesn't fit here.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's still July 28th where I am, which means it's still Lance's birthday and I'm not late!

**I.**

After the rush of adrenaline is over, after they have finished asking questions and congratulating each other for the umpteenth time, after Allura and Coran have shown them their rooms in the castle and everyone has said goodnight, Lance find himself staring at the ceiling. To say that his day has been eventful would be the biggest understatement in all of eternity, but he can’t find a better word to sum up how he’d gone from trying to force some bonding between Hunk, Pidge and himself by sneaking out of the Garrison, to forming a giant robot made of smaller robots and fighting a spaceship.

He’s exhausted, yet he can’t sleep, because he is uncomfortably aware of a literally alien presence in his mind.

Back on Earth, the blue lion had entered his mind without warning, had put the instructions in his head and he’d been so focused on following those instructions, on piloting, on fighting for his life, that he hadn’t noticed that that knowledge wasn’t the only new thing in his mind.

It’s only now, lying in the dark, that he notices her.

 _Her_.

A sentient being’s pronoun for the bright, warm spot full of noise inside his head.

Since the spot’s in his mind, Lance tries to approach it like a thought, taking note of how it feels and how it makes him feel, tries to deduce something from the way it looks, and in the end he doesn’t feel like he has learned anything. The spot remains.

He tries to approach it like he’d approached the blue lion back on Earth, except that, since he can’t knock, he calls: “Blue lion?” he whispers into the silence of his room.

He doesn’t like how the words sound. There’s no warmth in them, he might as well be reading the name of a spaceship on the newspaper.

“Blue Lion?” he tries again. That sounds better. A tad too obvious and simple for his taste, but better. “Blue.”

That sounds perfect, and she might have thought the same, because the spot becomes… brighter, or perhaps more intense, more present, stronger in his mind, the light of a small sun reaching towards his thoughts.

“ _Hello, Lance_ ,” a voice says inside his head, a voice that could never truly speak, that could never be actually heard, because it sounded (it read) like binary code mixed with a snowfall.

“Can you hear me?” he says, feeling ridiculous immediately. Of course the blue lion can hear him, she had just answered his call.

“ _No, I can’t._ ”

“What? Uh… was that sarcasm?”

“ _No. I can’t hear you. I’m receiving your thoughts._ ”

“Oh… So I don’t need to speak aloud? Wait. Can you hear everything I think?” He panics a bit (or a lot, depending on how much he’s willing to admit). “ _Do you… did you hear what I thought when I saw Allura?_ ”

He feels amused, which is strange, because he has no reason to be amused, and it’s also a somewhat subdued feeling, more like the memory of it than a current experience.

Something occurs to him: perhaps he hadn't felt amused, he'd felt amusement and had assumed that it was his own.

He should check.

“ _Was that you?_ ” he asks.

“ _What?_ ”

“ _The amusement. Was it you?_ ”

“ _Yes, that was me. You were funny and I wanted you to know that._ ”

“ _Ah._ ” Weird, weird, weird, too weird.

Lance closes his eyes and covers his face with his hands.

He’s talking to the blue lion.

The robot that brought him to outer space not only has the ability to put information in his brain, she also has the ability to speak to him and share her feelings. She has the ability to feel.

“ _Lance?_ ” His name sounds strange in her voice, layered.

“ _Yes?_ ”

“ _Am I scaring you?_ ” There are layers on those words as well, but he doesn’t get to identify them.

“ _No. Yes. A bit. I need a moment._ ”

“ _Take as long as you need, Lance._ ” He focuses on each of her words, tries to separate the layers in his name. “ _But before that, let me answer your question._ ”

“ _My question?_ ”

“ _Can you hear everything I think?_ ” his own voice says in his mind, a replay of what he’d said aloud just a few minutes earlier. This has layers as well, but these are easy to recognize: there’s his voice, and then there’s the Blue Lion’s language just below it, making it so he knows the thought came from her.

It’s a relief knowing that she can’t put thoughts in his head without him realizing they’re foreign.

“ _As long as you’re talking to me, reaching for me, I can hear your thoughts. The rest of the time, your mind is yours_ ,” she explains.

“ _Good to know._ ”

He runs a hand over his face. It’s been a long day. He’s in space. There’s a lion living in his head.

The weight of everything that has happened finally settles on his bones, and Lance is too tired to open his eyes, finally knows enough to be able to sleep.

“ _Good night, Blue_ ,” he says, turning to lie on his side. “ _Let’s talk more tomorrow._ ”

“ _Good night, Lance._ ”

There they are. Layers. He will figure them out tomorrow.

 

**II.**

Allura had said that they should be able to see through their lions’ eyes, and she’d told them to fly towards the ground.

Lance had been sure it’d be easy, hadn’t he been recently talking to the Blue Lion in his mind? She could hear his thoughts, he could hear hers, feel her emotions… seeing through her eyes should have been a piece of cake.

Instead, he had crashed.

 _They_ had crashed, Lance and the Blue Lion.

It shouldn’t have happened, and it pisses him off.

He pushes it aside, relegates it to the back of his mind - hides it under worries about food, complex analyses about the evolution of hairstyles, questions about their mission - until he almost forgets that something’s bothering him. They manage to form Voltron again, voluntarily, easily, but after they return he has time to notice the bruises that formed when the Blue Lion crashed against the ground and he slid forward in his seat, hitting the controls with his chest. Who the hell designed the lions and didn’t think to put seatbelts in them? And why hadn’t he been able to see through the Blue Lion’s eyes?

“ _Blue?_ ” he calls in his mind once he’s safely back in his room, examining the bruises. He guesses they could have been worse. He knows that they shouldn’t exist.

She doesn’t answer, so he tries again, closing his eyes for better focus. He finds the bright spot that she occupies in his head and directs his thought towards it when again he thinks, “ _Blue._ ”

Just like before, the spot becomes a small sun.

“ _Lance_ ,” she says. Layers again. He can feel them like currents in a river, yet still doesn’t know what’s in each one. It annoys him, and that annoyance makes him unable to keep hiding the uneasiness and the anger he’d been keeping at the back of his mind the entire day.

“ _What was that earlier?_ ”

“ _When?_ ” There’s a flash of confusion accompanying the question.

He decides to try something. She had played his own voice for him before, a memory, so maybe he can do the same thing. He thinks about the training exercise, about flying towards the ground and hitting the controls with his chest.

“ _You let me crash._ ”

The Blue Lion sighs. It takes Lance a moment to realize that what he’s hearing in his head is a sigh, because it sounds entirely human despite there being numbers and snow in it. The sigh sounds like a recording.

“ _I did_ ,” she says.

“ _Why?_ ” He doesn’t try to hide how betrayed he feels.

“ _You weren’t trying to see with my eyes. I told you, Lance, if you want to share thoughts you have to reach for me. In that moment you were more busy arguing with the Red Paladin than trying to bond with me._ ”

“ _That’s-_ ”

He’s interrupted by a memory from earlier: he’s the Blue Lion, flying towards the ground, while her pilot, Lance, argues over the comms with Red’s paladin. He’s not paying attention to her. _Lance. Lance, the ground._ He’s not listening. She braces herself for impact.

There’s nothing he can say in his defense. He’s still angry, but now he can’t direct it at her and it’s frustrating.

“ _Why do you want to be mad at me?_ ” the Blue Lion says.

He opens his eyes, sits at the edge of his bed. He thinks about one of the other training exercises they’d gone through that day, how all he’d been able to think about had been his family. Had the Garrison noticed they were gone? Were they searching for them? Had their families been notified?

He shouldn’t have sneaked out of the Garrison. If he hadn’t, they wouldn’t be here now.

“ _I- It was supposed to be a fun night. We were going to go out, meet some girls and come back as a better team. The end. Now I’m stuck at the other side of the universe because you decided I should be your pilot and you won’t even keep me from crashing against the ground._ ”

Lance rests his elbows on his knees, holds his head in his hands and tries not to cry. His lower lip trembles, his eyes sting. He wants to blame the Blue Lion for everything, yet can’t bring himself to do so. He’s the one that wanted to follow Keith. He’s the one that accepted the Blue Lion’s invitation to enter the cockpit and sat on the pilot’s chair. Nobody forced him. His being here is his own fault.

The Blue Lion’s presence grows in his head, the rays of the small sun reaching towards every corner of his mind, and soon he finds himself wrapped in the warmth of her thoughts, calmness and a hint of sorrow that he takes as an apology. It’s comforting, in the way a hug makes you feel safe and loved, bringing his defenses down.

He starts crying, ugly sobs that he hopes nobody else can hear from their rooms.

She doesn’t actually apologize, which is good, because he doesn’t want to forgive her. She brought him to fight in a war and he just wants to go home.

 

**III.**

They don’t talk again for a couple of days. She’s there in his mind, just a spot again, and that’s how he wants her to stay. He doesn’t know what to say to her, because he’s been thinking about Zarkon, about this war, about his own role in this conflict and he’s not entirely sure that he won’t forgive her.

They still work well together, manage to form Voltron again and fight the gladiator beast. She’s in the hangar, he’s celebrating with the others and with the Arusians, and in a moment of weakness Lance wonders if the Blue Lion’s okay with being alone in the hangar, if she wouldn’t like to know what’s happening in the castle, if there was some way that she could share in the fun. Allura had said that the lions had been sent away thousands of years ago; this might be the Blue Lion’s first party in ages and she’s missing it.

He’s about to call to her when he thinks of Earth and every thought of the Blue Lion is replaced by homesickness; there isn’t any room left to even think about how she’s responsible for his being there.

Lance doesn’t think about the Blue Lion when he leaves the party, doesn’t think about her while he talks to Coran about Earth, doesn’t think about her when he shields Coran from the explosion. He isn’t thinking about her, which is why it surprises him when, in the sea of pain that drowns him, he finds that she’s thinking about him, calling his name.

“ _Lance._ ” He doesn’t understand how it’s possible for a silent voice to sound so urgent. He finally understands the layers.

“ _Lance._ ” The first layer, the obvious one, is her voice, binary code and a snowfall.

“ _Lance._ ” The second layer is more words, a barely audible phrase: _my paladin_.

“ _Lance._ ” The third layer is emotion: worry, fear, deep affection. He can feel them all as clearly as if they were his own.

Lance’s last thought before blacking out isn’t his: it’s Blue calling his name, begging him to stay conscious.


	2. Your very own unfinished story

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be up on Friday to celebrate the new season, but then I decided to wait because it was going to get lost among all the new season posts. Then I decided to watch the season in case it made me want to change anything, which again delayed this. And then work came up (in the good way).
> 
> But now it's here! Enjoy.

**I.**

Lance’s first thought upon regaining consciousness isn’t his. He’s just starting to notice that his whole body hurts when a robotic voice in his mind warns, “ _Danger!_ ” and he’s opening his eyes to find a fight, some Galra dude holding Pidge and everyone rendered useless, which means it’s up to him to save the day.

Between pain and using every drop of energy he has to stay conscious, he’s only aware of what happens afterwards in broad strokes: everyone is safe, Galra guy gets taken down, he and Keith smile at each other (and Lance will pretend for the rest of his life that that didn’t happen, because if you can’t trust your rival to remain your rival, then you can’t trust anything), he’s taken to a healing pod.

The next time he awakes, he’s not surprised to hear Blue’s voice before he has even had the time to notice that nothing hurts.

“ _Welcome back_ ,” she says. There are actual words in the sentence, each one said in a different, human, voice. They sound recorded, like when she’d sighed, and they also sound relieved. Layers: the words in English, then in her language, below them her emotions (happiness, relief, extra fondness to add to what's in her tone).

“ _Sorry for worrying you_ ,” he thinks as he stumbles out of the healing pod. Lance feels like he owes her those words, if only because she has decided that out of all the people in the world, she likes him. It makes it harder to stay angry.

“ _There’s nothing to apologize for, Lance,_ ” she says. Almost all the words are recorded. His name isn’t.

“ _I’m not mad at you anymore_ ,” he adds as he wanders around the room, following the sounds of the others’ voices, too dizzy and confused to really know where he’s going.

“ _Thank you, Lance_ ,” she says. She must know he hasn’t forgiven her yet, she must feel it, but the layer of fondness in his name remains.

 

**II.**

Everyone has something to say about the Nyma thing, even the mice (if he goes by the way they stare at him from Allura’s shoulders as she tells him that he should have been more careful), but after the official reprimand is given, most are polite enough to remain quiet.

Lance approaches Hunk and lets him say what he’s thinking, because he’d been right and he deserves to be listened to by the person that almost ruined everything by not listening the first time. Sure, it’s a bit late, but it’s the thought that counts.

Which reminds him that Hunk hadn’t been the only one who’d expressed doubts regarding Nyma and Rolo’s trustworthiness, and that he hasn’t really talked to Blue since he got mad at her days ago.

They still have some time before reaching the Balmera. Here’s hoping it’s long enough.

Lance considers going to his room to have some privacy while he talks to Blue, but it might look like he’s not taking things seriously, what with everyone at the bridge. Really, if he’s going to talk to her he should do it directly. There’s no reason not to.

“I’ll be in the hangar,” he says. “I want to check on Blue.”

He catches the approval on Allura’s face and mentally commends himself.

He takes it as a good sign that Blue didn’t put up her force field, but he doesn’t like how he can’t seem to reach her when he tries to approach her mind with his. The small sun is there, but he can’t gleam anything – no emotions, no stray thoughts, not a word in his direction.

Lance looks up at Blue, hoping she might show some sign of having acknowledged his arrival, but if there is one, he isn’t seeing it.

“ _Are you mad that you got stolen?_ ” he asks, immediately facepalming. Of course she is.

A flash of emotion: annoyance and deep, deep amusement, with some fondness mixed in. He has the slight suspicion that she’s not answering just to be a little shit.

“ _I’m sorry, Blue, it won’t happen again!_ ” Quick, flatter her, gain her approval. “ _You’re the only one for me!_ ”

“ _Pfffft._ ” That sounded like a recording. Below that, in her own language, “ _Nice, but not true_ ,” and below that, amused disbelief that he’s going to take as a good thing.

“ _You are! You are purr-fect for me!_ ”

Blue laughs. It sounds clear in his head, a man’s laughter, deep and joyful. That’s not the laughter of someone who’s laughing politely at a lame pun, it’s the laughter of someone who’s genuinely having fun and isn’t even trying to control it.

“ _Has that ever worked, Lance?_ ” she asks, again with each word said by a different voice, still no human voice for his name.

“ _It just did, Bonita,_ ” he says, smirking. If he’s going to throw pick up lines at alien girls, he might as well genuinely flatter his lion.

“ _Bonita?_ ” Bemusement. “ _Pretty?_ ”

“ _Yeah. You’re my best girl, you deserve a special name._ ”

“ _Hmm._ ” There are no emotions attached to the sound, leaving Lance confused. Was it okay? Has he overstepped a boundary?

He’s about to talk to her again when she asks, “ _Why in Spanish?_ ”

“Huh?”

“ _You have spoken English all this time. We have set English as the default language for translations. Why Spanish?_ ”

“ _It’s my first language. I don’t use it much because nobody else speaks it, but sometimes it comes out? Sometimes the right word comes out in Spanish and I don’t notice. And other times I just use some words. Like a piece from home._ ” He shrugs, as if the movement could help force the homesickness to the back of his mind.

“ _You are not from where I found you?_ ”

“ _No. I went there to become a pilot. Best place in the world for that._ ” He doesn’t think of his country, his city or his house. He doesn’t think of his family. It’s not the time for that.

“ _Bonita_ ,” Blue says in her voice, pleased. “ _Bonita._ ” Satisfaction and pride and happiness.

“Bonita,” he says softly, so she can record the sound in case she ever wants to use it.

“ _Bonita_ ,” she repeats in his voice.

“ _Blue? Why do you use recordings to speak?_ ”

“ _I like them better. It’s easier to hold a conversation when you can use a tone of voice. I would have started earlier, but I thought that hearing human voices in your head would have made you suspect you were suffering from a mental health problem instead of realizing it was me._ ”

He’s impressed by the fact that she managed to have every single word in that sentence in her archive.

“Oh. _That’s very considerate of you._ ”

“ _I am like that,_ ” she says.

He snorts and doesn't bother asking if that's sarcasm. He's sure it isn't.

“ _I should head back to the bridge_ ,” he says, suddenly reluctant to end this conversation. “ _I just wanted to apologize for Nyma. Sorry. That… that could have ended badly._ ”

“ _Fortunately, it didn’t. I have already asked Red to give my thanks to her Paladin._ ”

Lance cringes.

“ _I owe him now, don’t I?_ ”

“ _Yes._ ”

He sighs.

“ _There was more stuff I wanted to talk about, but I don’t think I have time. Um… just in case I get blown up in the Balmera and put into a healing pod again, I’ll get through it quick and we can talk about it more later._ ”

“ _I won’t let you get blown up in the Balmera. I am never letting any harm come to you again._ ”

It’s a nice promise, but realistically speaking, impossible.

“ _Thank you, Bonita_ ,” he tells her instead, smiling. “ _Well, what I wanted to say was that I’m sorry about how I talked to you the other day. It’s true that you brought me here, but… I can see why you did it? This is war, you wanted help, and you found a way to do it. Makes sense. I… yeah. I’ve been thinking about it and I’m not angry anymore._ ”

“ _Thank you, Lance._ ” He can feel her gratitude, which is strange. It’s a bigger feeling than all the others she has shared, this one isn’t hidden under words nor gone in a second, she lets this fill his mind and his thoughts, cover everything he’s conscious of, until the only way he knows this feeling isn’t his own is because he remembers where it came from, can trace its way back to the small sun.

And then it’s gone.

He returns to the bridge calmer and more confident. He and Blue are going to be amazing in this mission.

 

**III.**

Lance had said they’d talk more after they’d finished saving Hunk’s girlfriend and her planet, and he keeps his promises, so he makes his way to the hangar again after an appropriate resting time.

He studies Blue’s frame, makes a mental note to somehow find some paint and cover the spots where the paint has chipped off.

“ _Hello, Lance_ ,” she says.

“ _Hi, Bonita._ ”

She lowers her head and opens her mouth to let him walk in. He sits on the cockpit’s floor, his back against the chair, facing the door. He’s scared he might do something stupid, like try to fly back to Earth.

“ _You wouldn’t_ ,” Blue says, startling him. He hadn’t realized he’d been sharing that thought. She hadn’t sounded accusing, just sympathetic.

“ _No, I wouldn’t. I’m here and I’m staying. We’re doing a good thing. Like, I knew we were doing good, it’s why I never tried to leave, why I never said anything… But today was like… an extra confirmation? Like a seal of approval. A ‘You’re doing a good thing’ certificate. If I couldn’t leave before, I definitely can’t after that… it’s not my style, anyway. I’m doing this right now, and I’ll keep doing this until it ends or-_ ” he cuts himself there. The end of the sentence was a bit morbid.

She guesses it anyway.

“ _It won’t end you. I won’t allow it._ ”

“ _You’ve said so before._ ”

“ _I have lost a Paladin already. I am not losing another one._ ”

Right. 10,000 years of history. He should ask, right?

“ _Do you want to talk about it?_ ”

“ _Not right now._ ”

“ _Okay._ ”

They fall into an uncomfortable silence. He can feel Blue thinking, it’s like static at the back of his mind. She might be caught in thoughts of her other Paladin, like he’s caught in thoughts of Earth. Maybe he can use those to help.

"Hey, Blue,” he says aloud, like that will catch her attention better than just thinking, “did you ever get to see anything of Earth while you were there, or were you locked up waiting for me the whole time?”

“ _I was in the cave._ ”

“All the time?”

“ _All the time._ ”

“That sucks. Okay, you know what? When all this ends, you are going back to Earth with me and we’ll go around the world. Well, first we’ll go home and we’ll take everyone flying, because my mom will definitely want to go flying. And my siblings. My dad’s a bit scared of flying, so he might not go, but we can convince him together… You'll love Varadero, I promise you."

“ _Is that where you’re from?_ ”

“It’s part of my country.”

He hears waves. He actually hears them, it’s not a sound in his head and so he turns, looking for the source. He catches sight of the screen and finds a video playing: just people on the beach, enjoying the sun and the water.

“Where did you find that?” he asks, standing up slowly, his eyes glued to the screen. It feels like ages since he last saw a familiar place.

“ _The Internet._ ”

“The Internet?”

“ _I had to do something while I waited._ ”

“I thought you’d been in sleep mode all that time.”

“ _I was in ‘sleep mode’_ ,” he can hear the quotation marks in the words, “ _for centuries, but I woke up every now and then. To see what happened._ ”

“And you discovered wi-fi.”

A gif of a person shrugging shows on the screen at the same time she transmits it to him through their mental link.

“What did you do online?”

“ _I watched movies and TV shows. Listened to music. Read books. If it was online at some point, I have it._ ”

“Everything?!”

“ _I deleted some things._ ” On the screen, a person shuddering. “ _Some humans had terrible ideas for entertainment… although I also deleted my memories of having seen those things. I only kept the names and the way they made me feel, so I wouldn’t make the mistake of downloading them again._ ”

Lance both wants to know and doesn’t. He decides that ignorance is bliss in some cases and doesn’t ask.

The video of the beach has changed to images of different cities. He recognizes his own, sits down to watch.

“I was afraid I’d start to forget home, you know?” he says when the video ends. “No matter how much you try, things fade from memory.”

“ _In some cases it must be nice_ ,” Blue says, wistful.

Oh. Robot brain.

“What was your home like?”

“ _Where I was made or where I felt at home?_ ”

“The latter.”

She shows him the planet from space. Most of it was covered by water. She might want to share more someday.

“I guess I’m not the only homesick one,” he murmurs.

“ _No, you aren’t. I think about it every day._ ”

“And you remember it perfectly, don’t you?”

“ _Yes._ ” No tone, but deep sadness underneath.

He thinks of Blue trapped in a cave in the desert, suddenly discovering wi-fi and seeing water for the first time in thousands of years – it breaks his heart.

“I guess it’s what happens when you have a brain that can’t forget.”

“ _Yes. That’s what happens when you have a brain that can’t forget._ ”

He leans back on the chair.

“You’ll go home with me,” he says again. “We’ll go to Earth and we’ll swim in the sea. It’s a promise.”

“ _Very well, Lance. It’s a promise._ ”

He doesn't want to leave yet, so he makes himself confortable and asks Blue to play the video again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you have a great day.
> 
> If you liked this fic and feel like promoting it, would you consider reblogging [this post](http://veto-power-over-fanworks.tumblr.com/post/163547545480/you-and-the-sea-talking)? Thanks!


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